Monday, 21 November 2016

Indian American Sentenced To Prison For Helping ISIS

Indian American Sentenced To Prison For Helping ISIS

New York: An
Indian American man who tried to go to Syria with his teenaged brother
and sister to join the ISIS terror organisation has been sentenced in
Chicago to 40 months in prison.

Mohammed Hazra Khan, 21, became
on Friday the first person of Indian origin to be convicted and
sentenced in the US for ISIS connections.

The sentencing hits the
news just after the victory of Republican Presidential candidate Donald
Trump, who had called for intensive investigation of Muslim immigrants
and, controversially, suggesting that if necessary their immigration
should be stopped temporarily till a mechanism for heightened scrutiny
was in place.

Federal Judge John J
Tharp sentenced Khan, who had admitted in court last year to the
charges of providing support to the ISIS and trying to go abroad to join
it, Mary B McCord, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for National
Security, said in a statement.

The judge in the Northern Illinois
federal court also ordered that for 20 years after his release, Khan
should undergo intensive supervision that includes "violent extremism
counselling" and a mental health treatment programme, she added.

Khan
was arrested by anti-terrorism officers two years ago while trying to
leave the US from Chicago's O'Hare Airport, she said. He was 19 years
old at the time of his arrest.

Khan's brother, who was 16 years
old in 2014, and sister, who was 17, were also stopped at the airport
but did not face any charges and were let go after officials questioned
them.

Khan is an American citizen born in New York. But his
family had immigrated from India and lived in the Chicago area, The
Chicago Tribune reported quoting his lawyer Thomas Anthony Durkin.

In
a Tribune picture taken outside the courtroom, Khan's mother, Zarine,
was seen wearing a hijab and his father, Shafi, a long beard. The
newspaper said that Khan wore a skullcap inside the court.

ABC
News reported that last year, his mother had publicly asked ISIS leaders
to "leave our children alone" and asserted: "The venom spewed by these
groups and the violence committed by them find no support in the Quran
and are completely at odds with our Islamic faith."

Durkin told
the judge that Khan did not intend to wage war against the US but was
naive and only wanted to join an Islamic caliphate and live according to
Muslim doctrine, according to the Tribune.

Tharp did not buy the
argument. The Tribune reported that the judge said: "Mr. Khan set off
to join and aid a terrorist organization that believes it is
appropriate, indeed believes it is holy, to kill anyone who disagrees
with its religious dogma."

Tharp referred to the behaviour of
ISIS and told Khan that "instead of a public beheading, you have been
given a public trial," ABC News reported.

Khan could have been
sentenced to 15 years, but the prosecutors asked for only five years
because he had cooperated in other prosecutions and the judge gave the
even more lenient sentence of 40 months.

With the two years he
spent in custody and remission for good behaviour, he would eligible to
be free to join college next year, ABC News said.

The Tribune
said that according to prosecutors, Khan helped with investigations
against an ISIS terrorist and recruiters and had also offered to testify
against a British ISIS recruiter, Mizanur Rahman.